Hou Quan (Monkey Kung Fu)
猴拳A family of Chinese monkey styles with five monkey types; its best documented branch, Da Sheng Men, arose around 1911.
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ChinaCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Hou Quan (Monkey Kung Fu)
Hou quan, the monkey fist, is a collective name for several independent Chinese systems that imitate the movement and behaviour of a monkey. Some work as schools in their own right, others form one of the five animal sections inside broader styles. The best documented branch is Da Sheng Men, the school of the Great Sage, named after the monkey king Sun Wukong of the novel Journey to the West. It was created by Kou Si at the close of the Qing dynasty, around 1911; his student Geng De Hai later combined it with piguaquan, producing the school Da Sheng Pi Gua Men. The story that Kou Si watched monkeys from the window of a prison cell belongs to legend rather than documented history. The tradition recognises five monkey types, each with a different character: the drunken monkey attacks the throat, eyes and groin and deliberately unbalances itself; the stone monkey conditions the body to absorb blows; the standing or tall monkey works from an upright stance; the wooden monkey is serious and aggressive and adds grappling; the lost monkey builds on deception and feints. Technically the style is marked by a crouch that goes almost to a seat, jerky head movements, open-hand slaps and claw strikes, and facial expressions that mimic the monkey. The training is physically extreme, since it rests on rolls, leaps and falls. The Sichuan variant from the Emei mountains, taught by Xiao Yingpeng, was also taken into the programme of modern competitive wushu.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.